At 09:43 PM 5/5/97 -0700, Kent Crispin thoughtfully expounded thus:
I have heard, from a knowledgable person, that the reason that the NRA has not pressed a constitutional challenge is that their lawyers tell them that the historical context clearly indicates that the second amendment does *not* protect individual ownership of firearms, and that a constitutional challenge would almost certainly lose. Hence the NRA resorts to lobbying. That is, it is not a matter of Roosevelt scaring the judges, but a matter of the clear intent of the constitution.
I suppose one can quibble on this, but I do not think this is the case. It _is_ possible that precedent and the accumulation of rulings would not support an individual right to bear arms, but from a strict constitutional POV, as well as the historical record of quotations by the Founding Fathers and associated writings, it is very clear that the second amendment was specifically written to protect the individual RTKBA in order to resist the establishment of a tyrannical government. One of the best reviews of this is: The Embarassing Second Amendment by Sanford Levinson, Yale Law Journal Volume 99, pp 637-659 (1989) Tom Porter txporter@mindspring.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi